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Updated: June 16, 2025
I might further exemplify the possibility of a political sentiment running through various states, and combining factions in them, from the history of the Middle Ages in the Guelfs and Ghibellines.
How many struggles of faction, how many scenes of civil war, have these old houses witnessed! for in the period of their splendour, Florence was torn by intestine feuds; from generation to generation, Guelfs and Ghibelines, Bianchi and Neri, handed down their bitter quarrels, private and personal animosity mingling with public or party spirit, and ending in many a dark and violent deed.
Nor is this the end of the perplexity. Not only are the cities at war with one another, but they are plunged in ceaseless strife within the circuit of their ramparts. The people with the nobles, the burghs with the castles, the plebeians with the burgher aristocracy, the men of commerce with the men of arms and ancient lineage, Guelfs and Ghibellines, clash together in persistent fury.
The efforts of Frederick to enforce the imperial supremacy over the Lombard cities were met with the same stubborn resistance from the Guelfs which his grandfather had encountered. In 1237 he gained a brilliant victory over them at Cortenuova.
In the twelfth century it attained its full vigour, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, triumphed over the abilities and courage of the Swabian princes. The assistance of the Ecclesiastical power had greatly contributed to the success of the Guelfs.
The papal states, after the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg, became a distinct sovereignty of the pontiffs. The bitter strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines went on in the Italian cities. The Genoese, who were Guelfic, defeated the Pisans in 1284; and "Pisa, which had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by Genoa." Florence, which was Guelfic, grew in strength.
As time went on, the Hohenstaufen slowly got the better of the Guelfs. With the falling away of the North, Otto's cause became distinctly the losing one. In 1206, Otto was defeated outside the walls of Cologne, and the great trading city was forced to transfer its obedience to his rival.
"A perpetual strife, in short," continued Montreal, "between the great families; an alternation of prosecutions, and confiscations, and banishments: today, the Guelfs proscribe the Ghibellines tomorrow, the Ghibellines drive out the Guelfs. This may be liberty, but it is the liberty of the strong against the weak.
At home it had always seemed so useless to know which was which, Guelfs or Ghibellines, when I was studying history, that I made no effort to fix them in my mind; but now, when I caught snatches of talk between Maida and the Chauffeulier, to whom the Guelfs and Ghibellines are still apparently as real as Republicans and Democrats were to Papa, I wished that I knew a little more about them.
The name seems to have been assumed when, amidst the unceasing strifes between Guelfs and Ghibellines that rent the civic life of Florence, William's party, the Ghibellines, for a brief space gained the ascendancy. But perpetuity was not to be found in Florentine politics; and in a short time he was a fugitive at a Tuscan village, Sarzana, beyond the reach of the victorious Guelfs.
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